Was road illegally cut through Rancho Guejito?

Road recently built into the southern end of Rancho Guejito. (/ County of San Diego)

The county has issued a stop work order to the owners of Rancho Guejito, the largest privately owned tract of land in the county, after receiving a complaint about possibly unauthorized grading of a large road into the southern most part of the property near state Route 78.

The order was issued Dec. 7, and county inspectors are scheduled to go onto the land next week to investigate further, said Michael Drake, a county land use spokesman.

The road is steep and about one mile long, Drake said.

The stop work order, based on aerial photographs, alleges multiple possible violations for grading within a watercourse (Guejito Creek) without a permit, grading without a permit, insufficient stormwater practices, and clearing without a permit.

Hank Rupp, an attorney who represents the Rancho Guejito Corp., said Tuesday the stop work order came as a complete surprise. He said the road is nothing more than a farm road connecting two agricultural groves.

“In the past two years we’ve spent millions of dollars planting 40,000 trees to grow local produce,” he said. “We just maintenanced our farm road. We’ll work with the county to try to understand what the concerns are and to remedy those concerns.”

Rupp said the road connects the lower pastures just north of Route 78, about two miles east of the San Diego Zoo’s Safari Park, and new groves in Rockwood Canyon. Avocados, lemons, grapefruits, mandarins and six types of grapes have been planted in the groves. He said the steep road is used only by produce trucks and farmworkers and has nothing to do with any type of future development of the property.

Photographs of the road provided by the county suggest the road extends a good ways north of Rockwood Canyon.

Rupp also said the roadwork was completed before the stop work order was received.

Rancho Guejito is a 23,000-acre piece of land that stretches from Route 78 nearly to Route 76. For the past several years the owners have said they would like to develop part of the property and in exchange would give the county or state about 16,000 acres to be preserved as open space.

The corporation is headed by Theodate Coates, a New York artist, the daughter of Benjamin Coates who bought the land in 1970 for $10 million. Benjamin Coates died in 2004, and it was shortly thereafter that development talk began.

If any major development of the property ever were to take place, a major access road from Route 78 northward would be needed.

Within the confines of Rancho Guejito is the last remaining undeveloped original Mexican land grant in the state. Environmentalists have said the preservation of the property could become the next great environmental battleground.